“I believe that community can act like mycelium and weave a web of interdependence supporting individuals at every level of need and protecting them against the negative threats of gentrification but also bringing back hope to individuals and communities and enabling them to build and deliver exciting community led visions for their neighbourhoods.”
Paulette Singer, Our Yard
Saving Clitterhouse Farm and beyond
Brent Cross, London
meet ...
Paulette
Our Why
Clitterhouse Farm sits within the Brent Cross Regeneration zone, one of the largest regeneration sites in Europe. Having waited for over 30yrs for the development there have been incredible levels of regeneration blight and an increasingly disengaged community.
Clitterhouse Farm dates back to the 1500s and sits on Clitterhouse Playing Fields, one of the only local green open spaces. Up until 2013 the building sat derelict with neglect causing increasing anti-social behaviour with both the building and land around it becoming a no go zone for most of the local community.
Our Idea
By saving and protecting the historic Clitterhouse Farm for community use and engaging the community in the plans, we have encouraged the community to take back their power around local land and buildings. In doing so we have catalysed the beginnings of much needed community building and community led regeneration. Our project has over 60 engaged local residents who volunteer to help run and maintain our cafe, gardens and events. In supporting us many are also being supported through mental and physical health challenges, back into training and employment.
Our aim is to take on the whole site which would enable us to support dozens of local people to, bring their ideas into action, incubate dozens of businesses, save and restore a heritage asset, improve local bio diversity and strengthen the local economy.
With Footwork's support ...
About
Paulette will work to negotiate a long-term lease for the farm, to improve their story telling around social impact and to develop their governance structures to successfully draw down the capital funds needed to bring their full vision into reality.
Our Yard
Our Yard’s mission is to build and support resilient and sustainable communities in and around Clitterhouse Farm and Northwest London, and to become an innovative community-led exemplar for embedding social value in regeneration projects.